Introducing pleezer: a Deezer Connect player

[Tim Curtis]

Cool. Test image is available, see PM for download link.

1. Replace binary with your test version
- /usr/bin/pleezer

2. To test WebUI display of Deezer metadata and cover art
- Open Renderer Config and turn on Deezer Connect

3. To do command line launch using string constructed by moode (function startDeezer() in /var/www/inc/renderer.php)
- Kill pleezer from command line
- Run manually using the launch string below omitting -v ...

Code:

20241201 182103 DEBUG: startDeezer(): (pleezer --name "Moode9 Deezer" --device-type "web" --device "ALSA|_audioout||S16" --secrets-file "/etc/deezer/deezer.toml" --hook /var/local/www/commandw/deezevent.sh -v > /var/log/moode_pleezer.log 2>&1 &)

[roderickvd]

Released v0.4.0 which does release and acquisition of the output device properly.
Thanks for the test image, I'll give it a whirl soon.

[Tim Curtis]

Nice.
Just ran some tests with 0.4.0.

Audio output acquire and release seems to working good.

Some issues:
1. Connecting doesn't seem as stable as 0.3.0. It took several tries to get a connection.
2. Still getting 100% volume initially. The remote slider is at around 10%. As soon as I move the slider the volume changes to a level that corresponds to the slider position, however there is 3. below.
3. The volume curve still seems to be kind of steep. A 50% slider position produces nearly full volume to-the-ear.

ETA: Actually the volume curve does seem to be OK. I compared it to MPD and it's similar. Prolly the volume on my powered desktop speaks is kind of high.

Debug -vv logs are available if needed.

[roderickvd]

Nice.
Just ran some tests with 0.4.0.

Keep it coming :-)

Some issues:
1. Connecting doesn't seem as stable as 0.3.0. It took several tries to get a connection.
2. Still getting 100% volume initially. The remote slider is at around 10%. As soon as I move the slider the volume changes to a level that corresponds to the slider position, however there is 3. below.
3. The volume curve still seems to be kind of steep. A 50% slider position produces nearly full volume to-the-ear.

Debug -vv logs are available if needed.

1. It can help to force quit the Deezer app, because sometimes the Deezer app takes up on "connection offers" which have already expired. Instead of force quitting, you can also hit the "Reload" icon at the top right of the Deezer Connect connection dialog.

The Deezer Connect implementation on the native apps are quite fickle... at this moment remote control to a native desktop app doesn't even work at all for me. pleezer seems to be quite robust, but I can improve it further.

2. The initial volume I can't do anything about - as you saw in the -vv logs before, that's what the Deezer app is sending. It seems to be a bug there, that it doesn't take the "proper" system volume and send that to pleezer.

Let me know if you have any -vv logs that point to the contrary (i.e. you see that volume is sent < 1.0 but pleezer doesn't pick it up).

3. That's strange and certainly doesn't do that here. If you run with -v logs, you should see this:

INFO  pleezer::player] setting volume to 50.0%
DEBUG pleezer::player] volume scaled logarithmically: 3.2%

[Tim Curtis]

I'll look at some logs tonight.

Ouch :-0
2. The initial volume I can't do anything about - as you saw in the -vv logs before, that's what the Deezer app is sending. It seems to be a bug there, that it doesn't take the "proper" system volume and send that to pleezer.

If the 100% value shows up during or right after the connection setup but before first play then maybe override it with a cli option --initial-volume [value].

[roderickvd]

I could, but what if the first 100% volume gotten from Deezer Connect was actually intended by the user?
How do we know it's wrong or not?

[Nutul]

I could, but what if the first 100% volume gotten from Deezer Connect was actually intended by the user?
How do we know it's wrong or not?

I think in that case the user would have set 100% in the "initial volume" option... ;-)

[roderickvd]

Doesn't have to be. Could be that sometimes he connects with 100%, sometimes with 50%, sometimes with x%.

[Tim Curtis]

I could, but what if the first 100% volume gotten from Deezer Connect was actually intended by the user?
How do we know it's wrong or not?

I would let the usage scenario be the guide.

Users will connect, see the volume slider at 10% and expect that level of volume. Instead full volume is output :-O Thats a major problem!

If an --initial-volume is applied at "connected" the only downside is the the app slider won't reflect the actual volume at that point but the alternative is unexpected full volume!.

[roderickvd]

Let's add it and see if it indeed is intuitive.

It will be a little bit different from Spotify. There, we set initial volume because Spotify doesn't report any initial volume until you change it. Here, we will set initial volume and are going to ignore the first "set volume" command.